059: Sam Walton's Lessons to Get More Out of Your Team

Sam Walton was a master of growth and getting extraordinary results from his employees, or associates, as he liked to call them. He boiled it down to 3 basic principles which we talk about in the show today:

1 Keep Your Ear to the Ground

“A computer is not – and will never be – a substitute for getting out in your stores and learning what’s going on. In other words, a computer can tell you down to the dime what you’ve sold. But it can never tell you how much you could have sold.”

2 Push Responsibility – And Authority – Down

“The bigger we get as a company, the more important it becomes for us to shift responsibility and authority toward the front lines, toward that department manager who’s stocking the shelves and talking to the customer.”

3 Force Ideas to Bubble Up

“We’re always looking for new ways to encourage our associates out in the stores to push their ideas up through the system. We do a lot of this at Saturday morning meetings. We’ll invite associates who have thought up something that’s really worked well for their store – a particular item or a particular display – to come share those ideas with us.”

Great lessons. I don’t know about you, but I am going to begin to implement these ideas to a higher level immediately.

 Enjoy the episode!